What is a backlink and why should I care?

Building back-links to your website is one of the most important steps you can take to make your website visible to the search engines.  However, when I speak with clientelle and I talk about building back-links, the most common response is a blank stare!

So what exactly is a back-link and why is it important?

A back-link is one website linking to another.  That's it.  Pretty simple!

Why is this important?

This is one of the MOST important steps to your website building endeavors because the search engines count how many other people are linking to your site.  The search engines are very sophisticated, however they are still not as sophisticated as human beings.  The search engines consider a back-link to be a recommendation for the content on a page and the philosophy of the search engines is that what other people say about a website is more trustworthy then what is placed on the site itself.

How do I build backlinks?

As with just about everything in SEO, it all begins with keywords.  The first thing you need to do is spend some time to research the keyword that you want to your site to show up with.  Then, you want to use that keyword as the "Anchor Text" for your link.

Here is an example:

Beaverton Carpet Cleaning

This is one of my current clients.  The anchor text in this ad is the actual keyword we are targeting for.  We are targeting for Carpet cleaning in beaverton oregon.

The search engines now look at these backlinks as really relevent.  many people make the mistake of using the words CLICK HERE as the actual anchor text, but the search engines consider the actual keyword like Beaverton Carpet Cleaners as much more relevant.

So how do I get backlinks like this?

There are several strategies that you can implement to put this strategy to work for you.  One thing you can do is start a business blog.  When you start a business blog you can write about your industry.  In this example, our client is going to start a blog about cleaning carpets, and Beaverton Carpet Cleaning is going to be used thoughout the articles.

Another strategy is to use article directories.  You can write business articles about your industry and you can place your back-links within the content of your articles.  Once again, you could teach how to get stains out and write Beaverton Carpet Cleaners in the article.

Do this consistently over a period of months and as the search engines find your links, they are going to give more and more credit to your primary page.Tweet

What a razor blade can teach you about marketing your business

I found an ad that I think is SPECTACULAR and is something that I think teaches a lot about how to effectively market a small business' products/services.

Here is part of the ad I found.



This is an ad that was run by Proctor and Gamble to sell razor blades and other shaving accessories.

The obvious thing to do for most small business owners would be to present the "Features" of your product:

• Our razor has 5 blades instead of 3
• Our razor has a silver handle
• Our razor has a silver stand

These are the Features of a product.  Features are BORING!  When Proctor and Gamble decided to write this ad, they instead decided to focus their marketing efforts on the BENEFIT of using their products in a very clever way!

The headline they chose was this:

I will teach those less smooth then myself the path to smoothness

They are focusing on the end result.  Smoothness. That's what razors do.  Make your face smooth.  However, there is also an hidden message there...communicated as a double entendre.

The word Smoothness has several meanings in this context:

1. A person could have a smooth face from the result of a good shave
2. A man can be smooth in his interactions with women

Ultimately, one of the core desires of a man who wants a good shave is the opportunity to impress the ladies and have opportunities for sex & romance.

Your product or service doesn't necessarily have to appeal to the sex drive of your customers, but there are two lessons to be learned here that will help you to be more successful in your marketing efforts:

1. Focus on the BENEFITS your product or service offer and you'll make more sales
2. Your Benefit can be more then just the obvious...by changing your message in subtle ways, you can make your message much more important to your customers!

I hope you learned a lot and I would love for you to share other interesting examples in the comments section of this blog!

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The Four Pillars Of Small Business Marketing Success!

Greeting Small Business Owner! In today's blog, I wanted to talk about the four pillars of marketing success for your small business.

Speaking to you as a small business marketing consultant, I speak with a lot of small business owners about what makes a successful marketing campaign. In my experience, it seems that very few business owners have a complete understanding of everything that's involved in getting more customers (especially online).

In order to generate more customers for your small business on the internet, you have to take some time to evaluate what I like to call The Four Pillars of Marketing Success. Here they are for your education and enlightenment:

1. Market

Your market is a HUGE part of your overall marketing success. You need to know who your customers are (and what they want), who you competition is (and how you stack up), what the average prices are in the marketplace for your product or service and what keywords your customers are searching on the internet to find your business.

2. Creating a compelling marketing message

Once you know about your customers, competition, pricing and keywords the next step is to create a compelling marketing message. A compelling marketing message is a message that get's the attention of your customer and leads them to take a specific action. There are a few pieces to the overall marketing message that should be there to make it most effective.

First, to get the most customers, you should include an overt benefit. This is what your product or service does for your customer. The benefit should be stated in a direct and obvious manner. You should not be subtle about what your product or service does for your customer because they will not take the time to figure this out.

Second, you want to include forms of proof. Forms of proof could be case studies, before and after photos, testimonials, third party endorsements etc. Something that PROVES that your claims are true.

Third, your offering should have a dramatic difference. In essense, you should share something about your product that makes it truly unique and better then the competition.

Fourth, a call to action. Once you have utilized the other elements above to create a powerful marketing message, you have to leverage that information into a specific call to action like filling out a form or contacting you. Offering an incentive to take this specific action now is even better.

3. Getting your message seen by your customers

This is another important step. You can have the most amazing marketing letter in the world, but if your customers don't know that you exist, it doesn't matter. Getting your message to the masses is very important. There are several options for doing this. You can use search engine optimization (SEO), pay per click (PPC), affiliate marketing networks, banner advertising, social media marketing, classified postings, social bookmarking or contextual advertising. The best campaigns use a combination of these tools in order to get a lot of traffic and relevent traffic to your site.

4. Tracking your results

The last step is one that most people simply don't consider. This step is highly important because your marketing efforts rarely work as you plan them the first time out. IN order to know what's working and what's not, you need to take the time to track your results. The best way I have found to track one's results is to incorporate a tracking software into your site itself. You can use something as simple as google Analytics.

This type of software will tell you how many visitors you are getting, where they are coming from and you can actually use this software to follow your visitors around your site and see what pages they are looking at.

Capturing & analyzing this data can give you tremendous insights into the effectiveness of your marketing campaign and you can utilize this information to make adjustments to your marketing in order to maximize your results and get the most customers possible.

We call this process the four pillars of marketing because like a table has four legs, your marketing needs all of these elements in order to truly be successful. If you are not incorporating every element mentioned above, you are going to miss out on opportunities to make your marketing efforts as successful as possible and get as many customers as possible.



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